Hand over hand, Alan was climbing the scaffold. He reached the platform with the tank's atomic rifle strapped across his shoulders. Half a dozen technicians were preparing to leave.
"Shut it off!" Alan shouted. "Don't launch that bomb!"
"We can't stop it now. The mechanism is set."
"I'll kill you if I have to."
"We can't, don't you understand? The bomb will be launched in five minutes—no, four minutes and fifty seconds now. Once set, it's fully automatic. We didn't want to set it. Keifer made us do it. You're Alan Tremaine, aren't you?" the technician asked. "We're on your side, Tremaine. Most of the Outworlds are, ever since Earth's broadcast. But Keifer came here with a hard core of his followers in a small fleet and—"
"Never mind the talk. Can't you render the bomb harmless?"
The technician shook his head within the glassite helmet.
Overhead, the quarter-phase Earth was shining brightly, waiting helplessly.
"It's the radioactive cobalt that will do the damage," Alan said. "An atomic trigger for the hydrogen bomb, a hydrogen trigger for the cobalt, right?"